Eidolon
by Drab Whistler
Summary: Metal Sonic moves. On this ghastly highway, he has to.


Neon lights gleam in the dark, alternating a rainbow of colors. Misty smoke hangs lazily in the air before vanishing into nothingness. A setting sun hides behind the clouds, casting the mechanized carnival into a reddish tint. I notice none of this. My eyes are blinkered onto the lifting gate in front of me.

A quick roll starts it out, and then I'm at full speed, wind resistance tilting my body almost to the ground. Flashy maneuvers dodge around the edge of spikes, before disappearing. It's all I can do. I can't talk, or listen. But I can move. I can think.

None of it matters. As I pass through a smokescreen, a loop approaches. Looking, I see him behind me. But what can he do? He can talk and listen. His face speaks enough for his outrage; contorted into a concentrating wreck of wasted determination. He can't move, at least not how I do.

Stick legs rush, working up a blur of sweat. His flabby arms hang low.

I fly out of the loop, bullet down the straight, and enter a helix all in one smooth motion. Twisting around, I get another chance to see him, flashing behind me, stretching the sound barrier.

Gaining speed as I go down a hill, I alight. Flames curl around me, sending out shockwaves as they move. Flicking away from a fast-approaching wall, I turn into a contorted corkscrew. Coming out of the overdrive, still at full speed, I negotiate the next turn.

Another look. He's still back there, following with split-second spindashes rolling down at record speed. Boost, and I rocket forward, a flaming ball demolishing any spikes along the way. Behind me, his blue spikes wave in the wind, forming a dangerous slipstream.

There's a hill, which I jump for no other reason than to show off and waste precious fuel.

We descend into the factory district. Wire fences weave like ivy down the poles. He's following me, right behind me.

Boost. I inch a few more inches ahead. It's not enough. He's coming, tearing his way down the path.

As the turbo comes in, my last hope sputters and dies. Nothing happens, and negative electrical charges rebound around me.

We enter a factory. I lead the way through the maze of boxes, but his eyes, I know without even looking, are staring straight at me.

A hairpin turn, and speed propels me onward. Sparks come from my heels, and I nearly crash into the edge. I right myself, still worried about him.

His heels trail mine, and I move into the next turn, trying to hold him back. He'll get there. I know it. It'll happen, as long as my mind keeps its focus on what's behind me.

A zigzag of boxes surprises me, and I do my best to maneuver. But the box rushes to the side, after me, and all I can do is postpone the end.

I nip the box, and my foe races ahead.

It pirouettes me around. I catch glimpses of him, getting smaller with every rotation.

Possiblities come into my head, as new as they are terrible. The person behind it all. Standing in a personal machine of useless machinery, he stands back there, ready to kill me without hesitation. He's always back there, never here, where it will make the difference.

My body runs on autopilot, meandering around bends and curves at just the speed to get by. There's no hope.

But I can move, even at the pace of jammed gears. None of it matters anymore. Just survival. And the nagging tingling in the back

Then the sound hits me, an incessant buzzing behind me. He is after me. I have no choice but to move.

As I run, saving my neck, out of the factory, I realize something.

My master made me, fashioned me out of scrap metal, but he has me racing against something that cannot lose? It's doomed to failure.

Like everything else here.

The thought comes to me clean and unexpected. All the smokestacks will choke. The factories will rust, and the neon lights will dim. And the sun will watch it all. There's nothing else left to do but push on.

I move, just scraping by, through everything, dodging the obstacles with a sort of half-hearted vigor, turning a bend. The end is in sight, the gate already closed behind the hedgehog, which was probably shouting with glee.

I power out, in one last-ditch effort to get there before the laser does, at least. But there's one trouble. There's nowhere to go.

Speeding down, I hit the wall with a cracking sound, jumbling my components. I crumple before the foot of the bank, my slow speed crumpling my legs like tinfoil. My eyes, with red false pupils, dim suddenly.

Shock. Electricity jolts me, blackening what remains. Night comes for my eyes.


End file.
